Biography

Coach Z is the "coach" of the residents of Free Country, USA, though it is unclear exactly which sports he coaches. He has a strong accent, based on an Upper Midwesternaccent (though it is also sometimes simply nonsensical) which is sometimes difficult for other characters to understand. While occasionally tiresome, he is always ready to offer encouragement and is rarely critical of anyone. When giving advice, he tends to start with the phrase "You can't just rush into the score zone", which has lost its meaning through time.

Coach Z wears a blue and purple baseball cap and a large gold Z emblem around his waist. Nobody knows for sure whether his bright green color is his skin or a body suit. However, baby Coach Z seems to be wearing footy pajamas in the email highschool, and on more than one occasion, Coach Z has mentioned his pants. In shapeshifter, Coach Z referred to his outfit as his "sweaty sweat-sweats", which was seen to have at least one pocket, and in Fan Costumes 2017 he is implied to have undressed. His head is a white sphere with light gray circles for eyes. Coach Z lacks a visible nose and mouth, but is able to talk, eat, and spit with ease. He has long arms and large feet, but very short legs.

An unshaven Coach Z talking about his butt.

As Coach Z himself is not afraid to admit, he's got more than two problems. Despite being a coach, he doesn't know what a basketball is, as indicated in secret recipes. It has been strongly implied that he has a crush on Marzipan, and he has occasionally made inappropriate comments about her; one occasionon her answering machine when he was drunk, and another during the commercial break of the 4Tst annual Fall Float Parade. In diorama, Coach Z even refers to Marzipan as his "gorgeous girlfriend". He also has difficulty pronouncing certain words, such as "job" (as shown in the "A Jorb Well Done" cartoon), instead pronouncing it as "jorb", "jaerb", or "jorearb". In addition to his frequent mispronunciations, Coach Z also seems to have mental and gender confusion problems, as evidenced by the time he spent "talking to his parents" on a disconnected telephone, and claiming to be a mother in garage sale. He has even stated on one occasion that he sometimes "forgets what's real, and what's just in [his] head". He has an apparent fixation with butts, and he seems to have a habit of butt-patting. He also has a slight obsession with ointments and body creams, like using 'Blue Star Ointment' to scare people in Halloween Fairstival. Many characters see him as a nuisance. Even Homestar treated Coach Z with contempt in Decemberween Short Shorts, quickly refusing to allow Coach Z to come to his house for Decemberween.

Coach Z's age is ambiguous, as he appears to be grown up when Strong Bad was a kid in the email stand-up as well as appearing as an adult in 1974 in the 'toon Decemberween short shorts while they both appeared to be babies in the email highschool (although this may simply be a product of Strong Bad's "doodle memory"). He is likely to be one of the older characters, since in caffeine, Strong Sad's slaps provoke him to cry out "I'm just an old man!"; in slumber party, Strong Bad refers to him, Bubs, and The King of Town as "older kids"; and while narrating an interaction between Coach Z and Bubs in narrator, Strong Bad labels them both as "weird old men".

Coach Z and Bubshad a falling out at one point, as Fall Float Parade shows us; Bubs makes a "Coach Z, you jerk!" float for the parade, and Coach Z retaliates by saying "Serves him right, then" when Strong Mad steals his concession stand. In the email narrator, it was shown that they had made-up and returned to having boring conversations about Bubs's napkins. However, in Most In The Graveyard, when it is implied that Coach Z fancies Bubs' sister, Bubs beats him up. In the same toon, it is also revealed that Coach Z and Bubs may actually be very distant cousins, although Bubs finds this hard to believe.

Character Video Transcript

COACH Z:{looking slightly offscreen} Is that thing on? {turns to the camera lens} Hey there, ho there! I'm the Coach! The Coach Z, I'd guess you'd call me. Or plain old Coach is fine, seein' as I'm the only one around, so, probably no one else would answer to that. You say "Hey Coach!", and I'd say "Yeah?" or... "That's me!" or... "Hoo-hah!" {waves his arms in the air} Any one of those. There's rumors flyin' around that I sleep in one of these lockers, {gestures to the lockers behind him} but uh, that's just not true. I usually crash on this bench here. {gestures to the bench behind him} My back's not in real good condition. {rubs his back} And now, I'd like to perform my hip-hop single, "These peoples try to fade me". {holds up a microphone, begins to sing} A one-two, a one-two—!

HOMESTAR RUNNER:{appears in front of camera} Sorry. We're all out of tape.

Coach Z's Accent

The primary factor in his hilarity, Coach Z's Upper Midwestern accent has made him into a very quotable character.

Sounds Affected

The most commonly mispronounced sounds are long e (e.g. The Cheat) and the short o (job), which both come out as an "or" or "aer" ("The Chort", "jaerb"), although in a few toons such as 3 Times Halloween Funjob, he's shown to purposely do it.

Inconsistencies

Evidence has suggested that Coach Z's accent may be bogus:

After saying "track or trort" in 3 Times Halloween Funjob, Bubs gets on his case and he says "trick or treat" correctly. If given "Swedish Fish", said as "Swordish Forsh", Bubs gets on his case again and Coach Z says "It's a crowd-pleaser."

In boring (really), while Strong Bad is writing his list of three-letter words, Coach Z interrupts him at the word "job", saying that "jorb is a four letters word."

Coach Z says "The Cheat" immediately after "The Chort" in mascot, though he speaks as though he's talking about two different people. He also refers to "Cheat kickers" just before suggesting to "kick The Chort" in Baddest of the Bands.

In the DVD commentary for part-time job, Mike exploits Coach Z's "accent" by implying that not only does Coach Z add the letter R to words, but now also likes to switch letters around sometimes, and in reply Coach Z partially admits to his accent being bogus.

In cliffhangers, in the process of his attempted unmasking of The Thnikkaman, he says "secret sorcret" twice, referring to Thnikkaman's secret being revealed and his shame in having really bad hand-eye coordination.

This is inconsistent with the clear despair it causes him in A Jorb Well Done, though it is possible that he's truly gained control over his accent after the metioned toon, and he just keeps it around for the aesthetic

According to the Old Characters Page, Coach Z wasn't much of a coach at the time, and he just added the title because it sounded "cooler than just Z". He has been seen coaching on numerous occasions since then, though his talent at it is still dubious at best.

Variations

In each Homestar Runner Halloween special, Coach Z has dressed up as something rap or hip-hop-related, or in the case of Theo Huxtable, something he believes to be hip-hop related. (The Noid and Doug McKenzie costumes were not released.)